- Since April 2024, the Commission's enforcement team has issued more than 3,100 cease-and-desist notices and referred 447,000+ URLs linked to illegal gambling to Google and Bing for removal.
- Unlicensed casino sites frequently restart under new domains after enforcement action, limiting the effectiveness of existing tools.
- This has lead to the Commission exploring ISP-level blocking powers, which would allow it to seek court orders requiring internet providers to make illegal sites unreachable at network level.
Licensed casino sites are set to benefit from the biggest expansion of UK Gambling Commission enforcement in years, it has emerged.
The Commission has now set out how it intends to spend an additional £26 million warchest tackling unlicensed online gambling.
The plan focuses on three areas: expanding the Illegal Markets team's headcount, developing better technological detection tools, and tightening oversight of cryptocurrency-facilitated gambling.
The staffing increase is already under way. Since April 2024, the team has issued more than 3,100 cease-and-desist notices and referred over 447,000 URLs linked to unlicensed operators to Google and Bing for removal. The additional investigators are intended to accelerate that pace significantly.
| Enforcement measure | Current status |
|---|---|
| Illegal Markets team headcount | Expansion already under way, funded by £26m government allocation |
| Cease-and-desist notices | 3,100+ issued since April 2024 |
| URL removals (Google and Bing) | 447,000+ illegal gambling URLs referred for removal since April 2024 |
| Technology detection tools | New tools in development to identify unlicensed operators earlier |
| Cryptocurrency oversight | New monitoring capability targeting crypto payment routes used by illegal operators |
| ISP-level domain blocking | Powers being explored; court orders would make unlicensed sites unreachable at network level |
The technology investment aims to close the gap between how quickly illegal sites appear and how quickly the Commission can act.
New detection tools are being developed to identify unlicensed operators earlier, before they attract a significant UK player base.
Crypto oversight is the third priority. Unlicensed operators have increasingly relied on cryptocurrency to bypass the payment blocking that has disrupted their conventional banking access. Tackling that route is a key part of the new strategy.
Alongside the £26 million commitment, the Commission is also exploring ISP-level blocking powers.
Court orders requiring internet providers to block unlicensed domains at network level would make it significantly harder for illegal operators to reappear under new URLs after enforcement action.
OLBG's Casino Content Manager David Coleman believes the expanded enforcement operation will make a practical difference.
He said: "The illegal market has been a real problem. These aren't fringe sites. They've been visible, they've been advertised, and players haven't always known what they were signing up to.
"The £26 million commitment changes the scale of the response. More investigators, better detection, and crypto oversight together close off the main routes unlicensed operators have relied on.
"The practical check for players is still the same: find the UKGC licence number at the bottom of the page before depositing. But a better-resourced regulator makes the whole market safer."
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